I empathise with Nokomis’s comment that it takes a lot of energy to buck the system, especially if you are a tired parent, as most of us are….But I do know some parents out there who are doing their best to challenge the norms…dads who have pushed for part-time work, couples such as Amy and Marc Vachon who practice equally shared parenting, but there are still many who still go with the status quo

To Rachel Cervantes, please feel free to comment on any of the blog titles that resonate with your life…:)

I don’t think blame can be wholly apportioned anywhere. The ideologies that support and create a workplace where parents and caretakers aren’t supported or valued as much as independent, single entities is society-wide. I’ve added to it by stepping out to spend time with my child, my partner adds to it by going to work to support our family, when I go back to work in a part-time pink-collar job as I likely will I will be again adding to it. But it feels too hard to try to buck the system. I don’t have the energy.

My partner’s friend and his wife just had a daughter. The father is probably more involved than the average father; he prides himself on being involved and doting. But now the baby is ten months old, the mother is preparing to go back to work, part time and working from home. The father has a job that requires him to travel every couple of weeks. And he can say, “I have to travel for my job.” And use other language that makes it seem like he has no choice. He WOULD be devoted to his daughter full time, but his hands are tied, you see.

If his wife were to go back to work full time and take a job that required travel, quite aside from various societal issues that condition her to make that a harder choice in the first place, anybody she talked to about it would never let her forget that it IS a choice. She wouldn’t get away with saying “I have to travel for my job” or “my hands are tied”. Many people would forcibly remind her that she could get another job, or cut her hours or whatever, but that the real issue is just that she’s not making her family a priority.

And yet, now it would seem that in a couple of years, when her career is dead-ended, people will say, “but you chose not to make your career a priority, you chose to have a child and cut your hours.”

So the issue isn’t choice, it isn’t picking priorities, it’s that the damn deck is stacked. Men can have families and they don’t have to feel torn. If they choose their careers, then they’re excellent career men, dedicated to making a good living for their families. Even though being career oriented doesn’t cost them much peace of mind because their partner has been put in the position where she either takes good care of the children or she pays for it in mother-shaming (so men can more easily trust that it’s all taken care of), they are lauded for tolerating the sacrifice of family time. If they take time off for their families, they are celebrated for being family men, with feminist values.

You simply will not see women being celebrated for making either choice. Nor even for choosing not to have children at all. There is simply no winning.

Rachel Cervantes (Bloggername)